This year Christmas in Egypt will be different. It won't just be a Coptic celebration, but a national one as well, Mariz Tadros reports. For the first time ever, 7 January is expected to be a quiet, traffic- free day on the streets throughout Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak has announced that Coptic Christmas -- which falls at the end of the first week of the year -- will be a national holiday for all Egyptians -- not just Copts. Until the president issued his decree, Copts were entitled to take the day off, but otherwise it was business as usual. The decision was met with unanimous applause and praise from Copts in Egypt and those in the diaspora, as well as from many intellectuals, civil society organisations and religious figures in Egypt. Pope Shenouda hailed the president's decision, saying it will mean a nicer Christmas for Copts and provide their Muslim brothers and sisters a chance to exchange holiday greetings. Youssef Sedhom, editor-in- chief of Watany, a newspaper that has long served as a venue for airing the grievances of Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt, hailed the decision as "a generous and wonderful gesture by our president... What is particularly important in the president's announcement is that it gives Copts the sense that all citizens are treated equally, because their religious feasts are worthy of national recognition". The editorial of Madares Al- Ahad (Sunday Schools), a widely-distributed Coptic monthly, said the decision was a positive initiative and that it reflects a fundamental change in the approach to the Coptic issue in Egypt. Coptic organisations in the United States published a large ad in Al-Ahram newspaper (23 December), expressing their gratitude to the president for his decision, which they hailed "as a symbol of the equality of all citizens, irrespective of their religious affiliation". Coptic associations in the United States have been systematically vilified in the Egyptian press for their role in promoting Coptic rights through the American Congress and media. Khairy Abdel-Malek, head of the Coptic-American Friendship Association, one of the organisations that sponsored the advertisement, welcomed the decision as indicating a deeper understanding of the Copts' predicament. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that the purpose of the advertisement was "to let Egyptians know that just as we are keen to call for the rights of Copts in Egypt when they are not respected, we are equally keen to recognise progress where it is made. Our actions, contrary to what others may think, were not to slander the country, but for its sake". Prominent Al-Ahram columnist Amina Shafik said she has received dozens of telephone calls from Muslims and Copts praising the 7 January holiday. She described the announcement as "fair, wise and timely", adding, "since Muslims and Copts are together in field and house and share the same loaf of bread, it is only natural that they should share each other's celebrations. It shows a mutual respect for each other's religions, especially given that the Qur'an mentions the birth of Jesus Christ." Said Mohamed Aziz, a factory owner, hailed the decision, but noted that granting everyone the holiday was not such a novel idea, as far as he was concerned. "Ever since I opened the factory 12 years ago, we have always taken both Christian and Muslim holidays off, because half our workers are Muslim and the other half are Christian, so it never made sense to have the place running at half capacity. Making 7 January a holiday for the Copts won't change things practically speaking because they have always taken it off. It does, however, strengthen the feeling that we [Egyptians] really are one unified fabric". Magdy Mohamed, a downtown restaurant owner, believes the step to be a positive one. "Just as Christians always celebrate our feasts, it is nice to be able to celebrate their feast with them. It does support the principle of national unity, in that we are all celebrating together. It creates a sort of social solidarity". Not that most Copts celebrate Christmas in a grand manner. Unlike in the West, Coptic Christmas is not synonymous with parties, gift shopping and wild times. It is more of a church affair, involving the breaking of the 40 day fast, following the four hour mass that ends at midnight on Christmas eve. Extended families gathering over a meal and new clothes for the children are the order of the day. The introduction of the "Christmas tree" and "Father Christmas" are fairly new, having been imported from the West. Another "new" feature of Coptic Christmas has indigenous roots, however. In recent years there has been a revival of the Coptic tradition of attending kiahk during the month preceding the celebration of Christ's birth. The Coptic month of kiahk is about congregating in church for long winter nights to sing Coptic hymns and chants -- many of them dedicated to St Mary. Nationwide, Copts' attendance of these evenings has increased considerably over the past few years. Those evenings at the church of St Mary in the Cairo district Zeitoun are particularly popular, drawing hundreds of people from across Cairo each day to attend chants led by Bishop Yoanis. As the chants last until the wee hours, some participants sneak outside for breaks to snack on tameya (falafel) sandwiches, peanuts, mandarin oranges, and lib (dried seeds) which have become strongly associated with kiahk. While His Holiness Pope Shenouda suggested that making 7 January a national holiday was never a Coptic demand or even on the church's agenda, Watany's Sedhom sees things differently. He pointed out that for many years his newspaper has been pressing for just such a decision in a bid to put an end to the problems experienced by Coptic students. On a practical level, he explained, it ends, once and for all, the many problems Coptic students have had with administrative officials in the Ministries of Education and Higher Education. "Although both ministers repeatedly instructed that exams should not be held on 7 January, many institutions felt independent enough to deliberately schedule exams and important lectures on that day -- simply because they could," he asserted. (Sedhom said he received letters this year from students who complained that they have examinations on 6 and 8 January, making it difficult for them to celebrate Christmas. He dismissed the complaints as petty.) Father Samaan, priest of St Simeon's church in the Cairo district Mansheyet Nasr, who also believes the decision will promote greater social cohesion, was optimistic that the declaration of Christmas as a national holiday will put an end to another problem he witnessed among his parishioners. "Our former district head refused to give Christians employed by the municipality the day off on Christmas and Easter, despite the fact that they were entitled, under law, to those days." People who were absent were sanctioned. "Now with Christmas a national holiday, twisted minds cannot do such things," Samaan said. Youssef Sedhom believes that while the Christmas decision does not wipe away all the grievances that Copts have with respect to their status in Egypt, it creates a climate conducive to introducing additional changes. "It is the beginning, not the end, of the road to reform". For Sedhom, the areas in which reforms are most needed are obtaining the same right to build churches as those accorded for establishing mosques (the construction of a church still requires a presidential decree); equality of opportunity to hold high-level posts in the military, civil, judicial and diplomatic realms, and equal opportunity to be nominated as a candidate running for office. Demands for which Sedhom believes progress has been made are in the recognition of Coptic history, identity and culture in the media and school curricula. In previous years, many people felt it was unfair that Copts should take days off on Christian, Muslim and national holidays, while Muslims only had the latter two. Everybody who the Weekly spoke to -- without exception -- was happy to have an extra day off work. Who would say no to the opportunity to sleep in, finish those errands that never seem to get done, or just enjoy a break in the middle of the week? However, some of those who spoke to the Weekly on condition of anonymity, said that while they welcomed the national holiday, they found the justification for it a bit difficult to swallow. One 40-year-old woman said, "The announcement came as a surprise," adding that she did not understand the "need" for the entire nation to celebrate Christmas when it was customary in Egypt to celebrate national and Islamic holidays. "We've been told that Egypt is an Islamic nation -- isn't it? So why celebrate a Christian feast that nobody can really relate to? It will be wonderful to have a holiday, but we certainly will not be celebrating Christmas because it doesn't mean anything to us," said another. She added, "If the point is to emphasise 'national unity', then it is giving us Muslims the opposite impression -- namely, that the government feels obliged to make a concession to the Copts, as though there was a situation of inequality to redress." Egyptians have always enjoyed a multiplicity of identities without feeling that they have to choose one or the other. Some feel, nonetheless, that what was particularly important about the president's remarks was his reference to "Egyptian citizenship". Amina Shafik believes that making 7 January a holiday is one way of enlivening the concept of citizenship. "It shows that at least on the official level, the state recognises the principle of equal citizenship for all." Sedhom was of the same view, stressing the importance of bringing the concept of Egyptian identity and citizenship back to the fore, "because the fact that our constitution says that the Shari'a is the main source of legislation has been misunderstood by some to mean that our identities are principally defined by religion and nothing else". Sedhom added that for him, the reference to citizenship implies that "religion is a question of personal belief while what unites us as a people is our common Egyptian identity." All the Copts who spoke to the Weekly expressed their hope that the president would also proclaim Easter Sunday a national holiday. In Orthodox churches, Easter is the most important feast of the year. In 1953, explained Sedhom, the cabinet issued a decree that was later codified into a law recognising Christmas and Easter as the main Christian holidays, and Epiphany, Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday as minor feasts. These five days were recognised as holidays for Christians only. "We are not asking that the government declare these five days national holidays, but it would be great to have Easter Sunday as a holiday." In the meantime, though, Copts have one more reason this year for an especially merry Christmas.
